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For Doug Jones, Now Comes The Hard Part

Bill Scher is a contributing editor to Politico Magazine, and co-host of the Bloggingheads.tv show “The DMZ.”

As shocking as Doug Jones’ win may appear at first blush, it resembles two other recent upsets.

Just as the Alabama Democrat poached a long-held Republican Senate seat near the one-year mark of the Trump presidency, in January 2010 Republican Scott Brown killed President Barack Obama’s buzz by winning a Massachusetts Senate special election and succeeding the “liberal lion,” Ted Kennedy.

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And just as Jones managed to defeat a scandal-tainted Republican in the Deep South, so did Louisiana’s John Bel Edwards in the 2015 gubernatorial election when he trounced David Vitter, who had admitted to frequenting prostitutes while in the Senate.

The challenge for Doug Jones is to be another John Bel Edwards, not another Scott Brown.

Giddy Democrats should be careful not to draw simplistic conclusions from this fluky win. Yes, it’s amazing that the pro-choice, pro-civil rights, pro-climate science Democrat put together a winning coalition fueled by African-Americans, women and the young. But it’s not just because they showed up—it’s also because Republicans didn’t.

Compared with the 2016 presidential results, the Republican vote plummeted by 51 percent, while the Democratic vote ticked down by just 8 percent. That matches up with the exit poll data that found Jones took only a smidge of the Republican vote away from Moore. Jones didn’t win by converting conservatives. He won because he was genial enough to keep the Democratic base energized without drawing Republicans out of their homes determined to stop him.

And it didn’t hurt that Jones wildly outraised and outspent Moore on TV, while Moore committed campaign malpractice by largely ditching the trail in the final days.

That’s not a model that can be easily replicated if and when Jones runs again in three years for a full six-year term, after casting a whole bunch of votes on the Senate floor. Ask Scott Brown.

Brown’s Massachusetts Miracle denied Democrats a 60-vote supermajority (briefly enjoyed after Minnesota’s Al Franken emerged victorious from an eight-month recount) and presaged the conservative wave that crashed the 2010 midterms. Yet Brown himself quickly went out with the tide in 2012, at the hands of Elizabeth Warren, because in office he mostly voted like every other Republican.

If Brown wanted a long career in the upper chamber, he would have been the 60th vote, not the 41st. He would have signaled to the Democrats that he was prepared to cooperate on several of Obama’s priorities, if they were prepared to let him put his stamp on legislation. Brown actually did that on Wall Street reform, but otherwise mainly functioned as a foot soldier of Republican obstruction. So at their next opportunity, Massachusetts voters dumped him.

If Jones is similarly obstructionist to President Donald Trump’s agenda, he will likely suffer a similar fate. Since Jones explicitly campaigned on his ability to “work across party lines,” by 2020, he will have to prove that he did.

However, simply voting like a Republican is not much of a strategy either. Democratic voters would feel betrayed, and they could be the ones who stay home next time.

For Jones to survive he will need to be true to his Democratic principles, while also winning some converts to broaden his coalition. Is that possible? Gov. John Bel Edwards offers some pointers.

Edwards won in Louisiana the old-fashioned way: He defused the culture war by being pro-life and pro-Second Amendment, and kept the focus on bread-and-butter issues. As governor, he’s built a solid record, expanding Medicaid, curtailing mandatory sentencing and even raising some taxes to balance the budget. Yet he’s holding on to a respectable 53 percent approval rating, with only 32 percent disapproving, in a state Trump won by 20 points.

The governor told POLITICO Magazine in September that Democrats “have a superior message in many regards that will resonate with people across this region, but they won’t hear it if you don’t check a couple of boxes first,” namely, on abortion and guns.

Jones showed Edwards was not completely right. There is another way to get abortion and guns off the table: run against a child molester. Then you can be pro-choice, support expanded background checks and still have a chance. But Edwards’ larger point remains true: The Democratic economic message has an audience in the South, so long as it can be heard.

Jones won’t have a governor’s power to enact policies in his state and prove they can work. But he will have a bully pulpit that no Deep South Democrat has had in years, with instant political rock-star status that comes with easy access to every TV green room in America. He will have a unique opportunity to re-introduce the Democratic Party to the South. He can call out Trump and the Republicans when he concludes their proposals don’t serve the working men and women of Alabama. And in doing so, he just might be able to neutralize the culture war.

When allegations of Moore’s sexual misconduct surfaced in November, several months after a sex scandal took down Governor Robert Bentley, Alabama political writer Josh Moon acidly lectured his state: “What’s it going to take, Alabama voter? What’s it going to take before you realize that your family values, my-sin-is-better-than-your-sin, conservative voting approach has produced a state government filled with lying, cheating, sexually assaulting, money-grubbing criminals who have embarrassed us countless times, and on top of everything, mismanaged the hell out of this place?”

The Jones campaign, in more delicate fashion, played off of this sentiment. One ad featured workers warning that Moore’s “extreme views” would be an embarrassment to the state, making it harder to attract business investment and create jobs. Another spot had Jones scoffing at Moore’s likening of public preschool to a Nazi “youth corps”: “Folks,” said a folksy Jones, “we’re 49th in education because of thinking like that.” Even Charles Barkley managed to be on-message: When the retired basketball star took the stage at Jones’ closing rally, he said, “We’ve got to stop looking like idiots.”

Moore’s campaign tried to thwart Jones by attacking the media and by hammering the Democrat’s pro-choice views at every possible opportunity. The fact that it didn’t work suggests that Moon was on to something.

Voters often excuse sin from their politicians, so long as they get something in return. Washington, D.C., forgave Mayor Marion Barry’s drug addiction and returned him to office following a jail sentence. Similarly, Providence, Rhode Island, Mayor Buddy Cianci was forced out of office after pleading no contest to a brutal assault, then reclaimed his post with the slogan, “He never stopped caring about Providence.” These men were seen by voters as effective mayors, whatever their faults.

But voters saw that Moore, despite his attempts to be the anti-establishment candidate, reflected a morally hypocritical Alabama Republican Party that lost its way and wasn’t delivering. No culture war virtue signaling could mask that reality. Some thought Jones made a fatal mistake by being candid about his pro-choice views, but perhaps disgusted Republicans recoiled at seeing an accused predator wave the anti-abortion flag to cover up his sins, and lacked the confidence he could actually do anything about the issue beyond the usual grandstanding.

Jones might wish that like most of his new colleagues—who started with six-year terms and hold beliefs that largely square with their constituents’ views—he could start his Senate career in quiet fashion. He does not have such a luxury. He has to almost immediately gear up for another campaign, and every vote he takes will attract intense scrutiny.

There are risks no matter what path he takes. But he has a rare opportunity to transform the perception of the Democratic Party in the South. Doing so may be the only way he gets to keep his new job.